Archive for June, 2010

“I want you to take that monkey back so he can be rehabilitated and get a second chance.” – Marge Simpson
“No, no, he’s fine. Go on, Mojo, show Marge your Happy Dance!” – Homer Simpson

There’s no new Zombie Simpsons until September at the earliest (October? fingers crossed!), so we’re going to spend the summer overthinking Season 9. Why Season 9? Because we did Season 8 last summer, and Season 9 was when the show started becoming more Zombie than Simpsons. Since we’re too lazy to do audio and too ugly to do video, we’ve booked a “chatroom” (ours is right between the one with the sexy seventh graders and the one with the bored federal agents pretending to be sexy seventh graders). So log on to your dial-up AOL and join us. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “convenience”).

Charlie Sweatpants: The only Bart/Lisa thing I didn’t like is how personal Bart takes her thinking he dumb.

He knows he’s dumber than her, he doesn’t care.

Dave: Bingo.

Mad Jon: The Willie stuff dragged on for sure, and I agree with Pants on the Lisa/Bart point.

Dave: And for no reason Bart gets massively butthurt and goes on a mission to prove a point that doesn’t matter.

Charlie Sweatpants: But I do like Lindsey Naegle.

Mad Jon: But time wise they weren’t that lengthy and they led to funny lines.

Charlie Sweatpants: Well, he doesn’t really, and I like when he reads the newspaper.

Mad Jon: And of course, Mojo was great.

Dave: Naegle reminds me of too many alpha-bitch types I work with. Therefore I hate her.

Mojo is pretty awesome.

And I enjoyed Homer’s request for a duck.

Mad Jon: It is unfortunate/fortunate that it clouds the Homer – jerkass stuff.

Charlie Sweatpants: How so?

Mad Jon: Homer wasn’t the man we loved from the early seasons in this episode. But because of his behavior Mojo came into my life, so it’s a wash as far as I am concerned.

Non-Homer behavior wears on me very quickly.

Charlie Sweatpants: I see what you mean, but this is so tame for Jerkass Homer that it hardly registers any more.

Mad Jon: True enough, but I don’t have a lot of grey area for that man.

Dave: I agree with Charlie here. Homer’s a jerkass but by modern standards he’s a saint in this episode.

Charlie Sweatpants: I remember distinctly not liking the way Homer acted when this one first aired, now I don’t mind so much. Again the parallel with the declining elderly relative is apt. This was one of his better days.

Dave, to get back to Lindsey Naegle for a moment, if she reminds you of people you work with, shouldn’t that make this funnier?

Dave: It should but it doesn’t.

There isn’t so much parody with her character as there is a mirror.

Mad Jon: You would think so but here we are…

Charlie Sweatpants: She showed up for the first time as the network executive spouting business speak, so you know she was based on all the ladder climbing career nutjobs that show up at a place like FOX the way new teeth show up in a shark.

“We got the popcorn, did you get ‘Waiting to Exhale’?” – Marge Simpson “They put us on the ‘Waiting to Exhale’ waiting list, but they said don’t hold your breath.” – Homer Simpson

There’s no new Zombie Simpsons until September at the earliest (October? fingers crossed!), so we’re going to spend the summer overthinking Season 9. Why Season 9? Because we did Season 8 last summer, and Season 9 was when the show started becoming more Zombie than Simpsons. Since we’re too lazy to do audio and too ugly to do video, we’ve booked a “chatroom” (ours is right between the one with the sexy seventh graders and the one with the bored federal agents pretending to be sexy seventh graders). So log on to your dial-up AOL and join us. This text has been edited for clarity and spelling (especially on “convenience”).

Charlie Sweatpants: Shall we get started? Singing clip show or media parody?

Mad Jon: Let’s start with clip show. I don’t want to end on a low note tonight.

Dave: Agreed.

Charlie Sweatpants: Fair enough, because this clip show sucks.

Mad Jon: It really does.

Dave: The clips are good. The glue is terrible.

Charlie Sweatpants: Well put.

Mad Jon: Exactly, I enjoy the songs, but did anyone else get the feeling that they just stopped caring about the glue around halfway through? The transitions sort of came and went when they felt like it.

Charlie Sweatpants: I think they stopped caring much sooner than halfway through.

Dave: Halfway is generous. I thought they stopped trying far earlier than that.

Charlie Sweatpants: Ha, beat you to it!

Dave: That you did.

Charlie Sweatpants: The opening is kinda funny, and the "Paint Your Wagon" song is nice.

But after that it’s basically an exercise in time killing.

Dave: I think the "Waiting to Exhale" bit is good too.

Charlie Sweatpants: That is a good joke.

Mad Jon: I think the Snake stuff pisses me off the very most.

Dave: There’s the implicit admission at the end about how lousy everything is with the banner and fourth wall breaking.

So you knew it sucked, but you served it to us anyway. Fuck you.

Charlie Sweatpants: Well, they did that in previous clip shows much better.

Dave: Right.

This wasn’t nearly as clever.

Mad Jon: I very much enjoy the first three clip shows.

Charlie Sweatpants: There were three?

Mad Jon: Yep, there was the April fools day one, the love story one, and the Troy McClure one.

Charlie Sweatpants: Troy McClure one?

You mean the 138th episode spectacular?

I’m not sure I’d define that as a clip show.

Dave: Well the banner said clip show number 4.

So let’s think about this…

Mad Jon: So how would you define a show that spends most of it’s time playing clips from other episodes?

Charlie Sweatpants: Well, a lot of the clips were things that didn’t air originally.

Dave: Wikipedia counts it.

Charlie Sweatpants: Not all of them, but some.

Mad Jon: Fair enough Charlie, but they were still clips that weren’t aired.

But we’ve digressed.

Charlie Sweatpants: Enh. I just don’t have this mentally filed under "clip show". We could debate the semantics all night, but I think we may just be avoiding talking about this particular one.

Dave: Jon, we all hate the Snake parts. Why do you?

Mad Jon: Well, I’m sure it’s the same reason you do, it is unbelievably unnecessary. They didn’t need him, it filled time, and was rather annoying.

And, that’s not Snake’s MO

He’s more of a convenience store and bank hold up guy, not a hostage taker or murderer

Charlie Sweatpants: The whole thing was time filling. They barely had a way to string the clips together, and all of the clips are loooooong.

And you’re right about Snake, it was more violent than we usually expect from him.

In the other clip shows, they show clips much faster and the clips themselves are shorter.

Mad Jon: Yeah, as the Devil’s advocate I could say that the song clips are inherently longer.

It reminds me of the Songs of Springfield CD.

Charlie Sweatpants: I know in this case they have to show the whole song, but several of them have lots of non-song parts around them.

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